I am a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University where I work with the Technology Policy Program. I cover technology, media, Internet, and free speech policy issues with a particular focus in online child safety and digital privacy policy issues.
I have spent two decades in the public policy research community. I previously served as the President of The Progress & Freedom Foundation, the Director of Telecommunications Studies at the Cato Institute, a Senior Fellow at The Heritage Foundation as a Fellow in Economic Policy, and a researcher at the Adam Smith Institute in London.
I am the author or editor of seven books on diverse topics such as media regulation and child safety issues, mass media regulation, Internet governance and jurisdiction, intellectual property, regulation of network industries, and the role of federalism within high-technology markets. I earned a B.A. in journalism and political science at Indiana University, and received a M.A. in international business management and trade theory at the University of Maryland.
I also blog regularly at the Technology Liberation Front (http://techliberation.com) and can be found on Twitter at: @AdamThierer

We Don't Need a Digital Bill of Rights

Do we need a “bill of rights” to safeguard our online lives and liberties? Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) think so. They proposed the idea at last week’s Personal Democracy Forum in New York and Rep. Issa has already posted a draft “Digital Bill of Rights” online at KeepTheWebOpen.com and invited comment. They hope that a grassroots movement will swell behind the effort and lead to action, although it remains unclear whether it would take the form or a law or a constitutional amendment.

The problem is that their current declaration operates at such a high level of abstraction that it’s hard to even know what most of the principles would mean in practice. Moreover, it’s unclear why citizens deserve narrowly-tailored rights for “digital” interactions instead of broad-based rights that cover all their activities and interactions, whether online or offline. Finally, there’s the question of what things we have “rights” to at all. As is all too often the case with other “Bill of Rights” proposals, there’s a bit of “rights inflation” at work in this Digital Bill of Rights.

The Digital Bill of Rights includes many laudable values and goals, however. Consider the first of the eight proposed “digital rights”:

1. Freedom: Digital citizens have a right to a free, uncensored Internet.

2. Openness: Digital citizens have a right to an open, unobstructed Internet.

3. Equality: All digital citizens are created equal on the Internet.

4. Participation: Digital citizens have a right to peaceably participate where and how they choose on the Internet.

5. Creativity: Digital citizens have a right to create, grow and collaborate on the Internet, and be held accountable for what they create.

6. Sharing: Digital citizens have a right to freely share their ideas, lawful discoveries and opinions on the Internet.

7. Accessibility: Digital citizens have a right to access the Internet equally, regardless of who they are or where they are.

8. Association: Digital citizens have a right to freely associate on the Internet.

It would be hard to be against any of these things. Luckily, at least here in the United States, we already enjoy all these freedoms thanks to the protections provided by our actual Bill of Rights. We are at liberty to participate where and how we choose, to share and be as creative as we desire, and to associate with whomever we wish. The First Amendment alone secures those rights. Likewise, properly construed, the First Amendment ensures the “right to a free, uncensored Internet,” it’s just that lawmakers often try to evade the Amendment’s unambiguous and comprehensive “Congress shall make no law” prohibition.

Post Your Comment

Post Your Reply

Forbes writers have the ability to call out member comments they find particularly interesting. Called-out comments are highlighted across the Forbes network. You'll be notified if your comment is called out.